ODA Committee
Writes Premier-Designate McGuinty To Congratulate Him On His Victory
And To Offer Our Help

October 3, 2003

SUMMARY

On October 3, 2003,
the ODA Committee wrote Premier-Designate McGuinty. See this letter
below. We congratulate him on his election victory. We thank him for
his past support of a strong ODA. We offer to help him keep his election
commitment to pass a strong ODA in his first year in office.

On behalf of the
Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee, I want to congratulate you
and the Liberal party on its sweeping victory in yesterday's election.
We look forward with enthusiasm to working together with you and your
new Government, on implementing your commitment to enact a strong, effective,
mandatory and enforceable Ontarians with Disabilities Act within your
first year in office.

We very much appreciated
your Party's commitment and your own personal commitment to this issue
over your years in opposition. You have repeatedly demonstrated this
commitment while in opposition, through your campaigning in this and
the 1999 elections on a platform to enact a strong ODA, through your
relentlessly and tenaciously pressing the Harris/Eves Government on
this issue over the past years, through your Party's unanimous support
for the October 29, 1998 legislative resolution,
introduced by Liberal MPP Dwight Duncan (which enshrined the
11 principles for the ODA to be strong and effective), through Liberal
MPP Steve Peters' 2000 province-wide ODA public consultation tour,
through the Liberal Party's excellent report on the need for a strong
Ontarians with Disabilities Act that resulted from Mr. Peters' public
consultation tour, and through Liberal MPP Ernie Parsons' proposing
a series of amendments to the Conservatives' weak ODA in 2001 - amendments
which the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee put forward and
which the Conservative Government regrettably voted down. We also appreciated
your Party's working together in a cooperative, non-partisan way in
the Legislature with the NDP over the past several years on the ODA
issue, in light of the NDP's similar support for a strong, effective
ODA.

Over the past eight
years, many, many Ontarians with disabilities felt an enormous sense
of frustration as the last Government delayed and delayed on this issue,
and then came forward two years ago with a weak, unenforceable law.
You and many members of your caucus expressed similar sentiments of
frustration on the floor of the Legislature, in interviews with the
media, at All-Candidates' Debates, and in private meetings with people
with disabilities.

Now that you have
won a strong mandate to implement your election platform, a new era
has begun. We want to offer our assistance to help you with your extraordinary
opportunity to implement your election ODA Commitments. We open this
new chapter in our campaign for a barrier-free Ontario with optimism,
energy and enthusiasm. We look forward in the coming days as you take
on the daunting task of forming your Government to rolling up our sleeves
and providing whatever assistance we can to help you craft an ODA which
will make Ontario become a proud world-leader in providing people with
disabilities with the chance to fully participate in employment, the
enjoyment of goods services and facilities, and all the other great
things that Ontario has to offer.

As you and your
caucus members have pointed out so often, every Ontarian either now
has a disability or will likely get one later in life. Your election
platform in this area can improve the lives of everyone in this province.
working together, we can make this a reality.